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While I fully intend to take 2 troopers and put a He-Man head on one and a Hordak head on the other, IF we only get 4 heads included in the pack, then I hope none of them are He-Man or Hordak.

The purpose of these packs are to be ARMY BUILDER packs. And while a He-Man head and Hordak head being included would be great for people only picking up one or two of these packs and wanting to display them that way, it would SUCK for people buying up several of these packs to build an army and 2 out of the 4 heads can only really be used once in a display (sure, people could have an army of Hordak Troopers or He-Man Troopers, but how many people would really want that?).

While overall I am excited about the upcoming Royal Guards 2-pack, there are a couple of issues that I have with it that I hope do not carry over to most future packs, especially the Horde Troopers.

The first and biggest issue I have is with the 4 interchangeable chest plates that are included. I'm not at all upset that they included 4 plates. But IMO, we should have gotten at least 2 of the version with the lines going across it with NO battle damage on it.

I have no problem with having the option of the Battle damaged plates for people who want to display their guards in the middle of battle or whatever. And the Eagle chest plate is cool, but really looks like it would only be worn by the "leader" of the guards, and really isn't one that I would want to reuse over and over if I get several packs of the guards.

I personally want to have a display with the guards being around King Randor, either while he is in the palace and not in battle, or lined up as if they are about to go into battle, and therefore I would want at least 1 normal, not damaged, "standard" chest plate for EACH guard. As it is I am going to have to see if there is a way for me to customize some of the battle damaged plates into non-battle damaged versions (and I'm not a very skilled customizer to do something like that), or I'll have to try and buy those plates off of other people who do not want them (which I think will be a hard trade to make).

My other beef with Royal guards (which isn't as big as my beef with the chest plates) is the head choices. I'm fine with the heads that there are, but IMO we should be getting at least 2 of the standard white person head. Now, I am not by any means racist, so please don't make that accusation.

My problem with there only being one standard human male white head is this... in the Filmation cartoon, and even in the MYP cartoon, to the best of my recollection, the vast majority of the guards (like when you would see them charging into battle) were just normal looking white human males. There wasn't an abundance of black guards (I have no problem with the black head being included... I'd even be fine with it if 2 white heads and 2 black heads were included.... eww, it sounds like I'm talking about pimples, but I'm not) on either show. I know there is that one black guard from Filmation from some particular episode that people have referenced in some threads about this 2-pack, and that's cool, but he is one guard.

Again, this is not an issue of racism. I have nothing against black characters (in fact, as far as MYP characters go, I would love it if they were to make Dekker at some point), and if the guards in the shows were largely depicted as being black, or even as having a roughly 50/50 ratio of white guards to black guards, I'd be cool with it.

In fact, the biggest beef with the heads included are the Caligar head and reptilian head. While kind of cool, if you want to depict the different creature-races in Eternia as also being part of the guard (or in the case of the reptilian head you want to recreate the thing from the comic of MYP episode 40 where MAA becomes a Snakeman), then that's cool, but IMO that should be secondary to being able to depict both guards in the pack in their most Iconic form. So, if anything there should be 5 or 6 heads included (giving us 2 white, 2 black, and then 1 of each of the creature races). That would be fine.

BUT, as much as I've gone on about this head issue with the guards, it isn't nearly as big of a deal to me as the chest plate issue since they all have the same helmet and you can put the mouth guard over them, so all you will end up really seeing is their eye area anyway. But I would really like to get chest plates that match.

Now, taking these issues over to what could potentially be done with the Horde Troopers, for them the head issue is a much bigger deal than it is with the guards. Since they probably won't be depicting different people/races in the same helmet like the guards since you don't see the face of anyone in the Trooper helmet, the way I see it, the trooper set NEEDS to come with 2 regular, standard, iconic trooper heads. There should be no difference between them, or at least very minimal differences.

If they want to include a head similar to that of the flashback scene in SOTS, that would be fine, but it needs to be in addition to 2 standard trooper heads. I'd actually be cool with 2 standard heads and 2 flashback heads, that way I could go back and forth with depicting my entire trooper army one way or the other.

As for any kind of swappable chest plates (if they do anything like that with the Horde Troopers), again, we NEED at least 2 standard, non-damaged, iconic chest plates with the Horde logo on it. Whatever other swappable options they want to include, have at it, as long as we get those two.

Though, to be honest, I really don't feel that the swappable chest plates (or anything like that) is necessary for the troopers. In fact, if people really do want a He-Man and Hordak head included, I say skip the swappable plates, maybe even minimize the amount of weapons included (maybe just 1 generic weapon for each trooper, or 2 generic weapons), and give us 6 heads... 2 standard, 2 flashback, 1 He-Man, and 1 Hordak.

But whatever happens, we better get at least 2 standard heads. I don't want to get a bunch of packs to build an army where I only have 1 standard head and 1 flashback head for every set of 2 troopers, but I end up with an abundance of He-Man and Hordak heads that I'm not going to use.

If only 4 heads can be included, I say skip He-man and Hordak. As someone else previously suggested, use the extra head that comes with Prince Adam to make a He-Man Trooper, or go buy an extra He-Man and/or Hordak to make the trooper versions of them. Whatever happens, I don't wan the inclusion of a He-Man and Hordak head in the Trooper pack to take away from the ability to make an army of relatively normal looking Horde Troopers. That would just SUCK!

I basically disagree entirely about the Royal Guard. As I recall soldiers didnt just throw away their armour and expect new replacements when it got damaged, so I feel this is fitting. Various states of (dis)repair. Oh, dont get me wrong, I wont be using either of the damaged plates. But it makes sense. And you have two clean ones.

As for the races heads, same thing. I'm not using the alt-races heads, but then I'm only getting one set i believe. But for those getting a bunch let's say, if you only want human, six various Human heads (Including the mouth covers dont forget) you get say 4 heads (2 races, with & without mouth) that look different. Oh, sure, they are the same face, but they are army builders. Hehe.

So basically use what they gave you, or dont. But to suggest they didnt do enough to customize your characters is laughable.

That being said, I agree completely with the Horde Troopers. They're just different I guess. I want both to be the exact same. Different weapons perhaps. But two same current timeline and maybe two same past timeline (if they can even use those as far as I know filmation designs). But I'd be ok if they had a hordak head and a he-man head. Wouldnt use them, but it'd be a neat service.

As a matter of fact their uniformity is so implied in my mind, that It'd actually just make more sense to do Horde Trooper as a single figure, and say double the production run for those that want more.

But as it is, I belive they will be a army builder (though I am afraid we'll get generic snake men before we get horde trooper *knock on wood*) and that Mattel & more importantly the 4H will do something cool.

But as you said, as Long as I can make 2 normal Horde at least, then I'll be happy.

Too bad they cant do General Sunder. Yet.

(and PS. I dont mean to be inflamitory but... People who actually aren't racist dont preclude their statements with "I'm not racist." To non-racist people it's usually assumed. And if you have to be told, fiction is usually a white dominated reality (in America at least) because by ratio it's being "coloured" by the target audience. So just because there may have been more White Eternians depicted, lets say, doesnt mean that a 1:1 split white/black is wrong in any way. That implication says more than anything else. I'm not accusing. But you seem to be terribly and cautiously over-defending your stance, which I feel belies your feelings, even if you are (appropriately) unwilling to admit them to yourself.)

Originally Posted by Dynamo of Eternia

While I fully intend to take 2 troopers and put a He-Man head on one and a Hordak head on the other, IF we only get 4 heads included in the pack, then I hope none of them are He-Man or Hordak.

The purpose of these packs are to be ARMY BUILDER packs. And while a He-Man head and Hordak head being included would be great for people only picking up one or two of these packs and wanting to display them that way, it would SUCK for people buying up several of these packs to build an army and 2 out of the 4 heads can only really be used once in a display (sure, people could have an army of Hordak Troopers or He-Man Troopers, but how many people would really want that?).

While overall I am excited about the upcoming Royal Guards 2-pack, there are a couple of issues that I have with it that I hope do not carry over to most future packs, especially the Horde Troopers.

The first and biggest issue I have is with the 4 interchangeable chest plates that are included. I'm not at all upset that they included 4 plates. But IMO, we should have gotten at least 2 of the version with the lines going across it with NO battle damage on it.

I have no problem with having the option of the Battle damaged plates for people who want to display their guards in the middle of battle or whatever. And the Eagle chest plate is cool, but really looks like it would only be worn by the "leader" of the guards, and really isn't one that I would want to reuse over and over if I get several packs of the guards.

I personally want to have a display with the guards being around King Randor, either while he is in the palace and not in battle, or lined up as if they are about to go into battle, and therefore I would want at least 1 normal, not damaged, "standard" chest plate for EACH guard. As it is I am going to have to see if there is a way for me to customize some of the battle damaged plates into non-battle damaged versions (and I'm not a very skilled customizer to do something like that), or I'll have to try and buy those plates off of other people who do not want them (which I think will be a hard trade to make).

My other beef with Royal guards (which isn't as big as my beef with the chest plates) is the head choices. I'm fine with the heads that there are, but IMO we should be getting at least 2 of the standard white person head. Now, I am not by any means racist, so please don't make that accusation.

My problem with there only being one standard human male white head is this... in the Filmation cartoon, and even in the MYP cartoon, to the best of my recollection, the vast majority of the guards (like when you would see them charging into battle) were just normal looking white human males. There wasn't an abundance of black guards (I have no problem with the black head being included... I'd even be fine with it if 2 white heads and 2 black heads were included.... eww, it sounds like I'm talking about pimples, but I'm not) on either show. I know there is that one black guard from Filmation from some particular episode that people have referenced in some threads about this 2-pack, and that's cool, but he is one guard.

Again, this is not an issue of racism. I have nothing against black characters (in fact, as far as MYP characters go, I would love it if they were to make Dekker at some point), and if the guards in the shows were largely depicted as being black, or even as having a roughly 50/50 ratio of white guards to black guards, I'd be cool with it.

In fact, the biggest beef with the heads included are the Caligar head and reptilian head. While kind of cool, if you want to depict the different creature-races in Eternia as also being part of the guard (or in the case of the reptilian head you want to recreate the thing from the comic of MYP episode 40 where MAA becomes a Snakeman), then that's cool, but IMO that should be secondary to being able to depict both guards in the pack in their most Iconic form. So, if anything there should be 5 or 6 heads included (giving us 2 white, 2 black, and then 1 of each of the creature races). That would be fine.

BUT, as much as I've gone on about this head issue with the guards, it isn't nearly as big of a deal to me as the chest plate issue since they all have the same helmet and you can put the mouth guard over them, so all you will end up really seeing is their eye area anyway. But I would really like to get chest plates that match.

Now, taking these issues over to what could potentially be done with the Horde Troopers, for them the head issue is a much bigger deal than it is with the guards. Since they probably won't be depicting different people/races in the same helmet like the guards since you don't see the face of anyone in the Trooper helmet, the way I see it, the trooper set NEEDS to come with 2 regular, standard, iconic trooper heads. There should be no difference between them, or at least very minimal differences.

If they want to include a head similar to that of the flashback scene in SOTS, that would be fine, but it needs to be in addition to 2 standard trooper heads. I'd actually be cool with 2 standard heads and 2 flashback heads, that way I could go back and forth with depicting my entire trooper army one way or the other.

As for any kind of swappable chest plates (if they do anything like that with the Horde Troopers), again, we NEED at least 2 standard, non-damaged, iconic chest plates with the Horde logo on it. Whatever other swappable options they want to include, have at it, as long as we get those two.

Though, to be honest, I really don't feel that the swappable chest plates (or anything like that) is necessary for the troopers. In fact, if people really do want a He-Man and Hordak head included, I say skip the swappable plates, maybe even minimize the amount of weapons included (maybe just 1 generic weapon for each trooper, or 2 generic weapons), and give us 6 heads... 2 standard, 2 flashback, 1 He-Man, and 1 Hordak.

But whatever happens, we better get at least 2 standard heads. I don't want to get a bunch of packs to build an army where I only have 1 standard head and 1 flashback head for every set of 2 troopers, but I end up with an abundance of He-Man and Hordak heads that I'm not going to use.

If only 4 heads can be included, I say skip He-man and Hordak. As someone else previously suggested, use the extra head that comes with Prince Adam to make a He-Man Trooper, or go buy an extra He-Man and/or Hordak to make the trooper versions of them. Whatever happens, I don't wan the inclusion of a He-Man and Hordak head in the Trooper pack to take away from the ability to make an army of relatively normal looking Horde Troopers. That would just SUCK!

Well, to each his own, i guess. As far as looks go, i think Skeletor is untold times better than hordak. He is kind of death incarnated in a bodybuylder's flesh husk, with the garments of a roman centurion. Hordak, by comparison, looks pretty lame. I always wondered what is he supposed to be. A man-bat with a couliflower cranium? Most likely. Only thing i liked about the old toy was his crossbow.
In the media, to br honest, when the two clashed it was either a draw (most frequent outcome) or a Skely win (in the filmation she-ra, at least one episode when shadow weaver betrays hordak).
And i liked the idea of horde prime, this was the only (little) thing that injected a (tiny) bit of simpathy for cabbage cranium batface, kinda like Tex Hex.
Last but not least, if we consider good old Skelly only has a handful of freaks to help him (ok, in the late minicomics he could count on the snakesmen too) fighting he-man, the masters and the whole army of eternia, while hordak had next to unlimited resources and still was unable to defeat a small rebellion...
Back on topic, well if hordies can also be human underneat the armour, well a human head would not be that bad an idea.
On another note, was'nt there a horde character that basically was a living brain, like the tmnt one?

Hordak looks like he was supposed to look somewhat vampiric, as he definitely recalls the classic nosferatu, with his pale face, bat-like ears, pointed teeth, red eyes and medieval style armor and cape. Plus the horde use a bat as a symbol. This is why I didn't like the techno-shape-changing Hordak from the Filmation cartoon. I thought the 200X series did much better job at capturing his character.

Yeah, but one "clean" one is with that eagle crest. I just want 2 clean normal chest plates.

So basically use what they gave you, or dont. But to suggest they didnt do enough to customize your characters is laughable.

Honestly, if anything, I guess my argument is that they almost gave us too much to customize the characters with. I would be happy and fine with it if they completely skipped giving us one of the "creature" heads in favor of another identical "Toyguru" head. And I would be fine if they skipped one of the battle damaged chest plates in favor of including a second non-damaged chest plate with the lines going across it.

I only suggested including 5 or 6 heads are more of a "comprimise" in favor of people who want those things. But I would happily give up some of those extras in favor of just getting duplicates of what I see as being needed to make the "basic, iconic" Royal Guard.

That being said, I agree completely with the Horde Troopers. They're just different I guess. I want both to be the exact same. Different weapons perhaps. But two same current timeline and maybe two same past timeline (if they can even use those as far as I know filmation designs). But I'd be ok if they had a hordak head and a he-man head. Wouldnt use them, but it'd be a neat service.

As a matter of fact their uniformity is so implied in my mind, that It'd actually just make more sense to do Horde Trooper as a single figure, and say double the production run for those that want more.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with the single figure argument, except that it would be more expensive to put together an army that way. To the best I can tell, these 2-packs are actually only going to be $30 per set, as opposed to $20 for each individual figure.

And really, we are just asking them to give us multiples of the same item. We are ASKING for less tooling in this case. It's cheaper for them to give us the uniformity that we are asking for, so I just hope we get it.

(and PS. I dont mean to be inflamitory but... People who actually aren't racist dont preclude their statements with "I'm not racist." To non-racist people it's usually assumed. And if you have to be told, fiction is usually a white dominated reality (in America at least) because by ratio it's being "coloured" by the target audience. So just because there may have been more White Eternians depicted, lets say, doesnt mean that a 1:1 split white/black is wrong in any way. That implication says more than anything else. I'm not accusing. But you seem to be terribly and cautiously over-defending your stance, which I feel belies your feelings, even if you are (appropriately) unwilling to admit them to yourself.)

I only "over" defended my stance to take a preemptive strike against anyone who would take it the wrong way. I don't want to go into Tar Swamp territory here, but in this day and age, something like this can be and often is taken the wrong way.

And I'm not hiding anything or trying to "cover up" some other truth. My stance stands as is.

While I have no problem buying and accepting figures based on unused concepts and from spin-off lines (like NA) which I never got into and include them in my display, for those characters that are included in this line that existed prominently in previous media, I just want to be able to have them be as close to how they appeared in that media as possible. So with Palace Guards, there were never any Caligar guards that I recall, nor any reptilian guards, and the black guards were few and far between. That is the basis of my argument. Nothing more, nothing less.

Besides, like I said before, the chest plates were the much bigger issue for me. Honestly, I plan to display all of my guards with the mouth piece attached to their helmets anyway, I just wish they came with an extra of the plain chest plate with no damage. Then I'd be fine with the set.

I´ve no clue, which different heads could be packed by. Maybe the head with the half-round eye-holes, which we saw in a flashback in "secret of the sword"

If possible, this would make them a pretty perfect set to me. Great ideas, pal!

Not to sound like a creepy cheerleader for Uki, but it's nice to know there is at least one person on this forum who is extremely positive & friendly all the time. I don't think I could be that nice even if you paid me. If we ever give out awards for "forum member of the month", Uki gets my vote. -Mr. Shokoti

Horde Trooper variations

On reflection I think the Palace Guard 2 pak was my fave of all the SDCC reveals.

Toyguru recently told us there would be minor differences between 2 pak army builder figures so both figures would not be 100% the same.

This sounded fantastic at the time and I do like the idea of the different colour/sculpted heads. That is awesome! The only thing I wish was different is the breastplates. I wish there were 2 of the undented breastplates with horizontal lines, so I can create an army of exact same armored Guards. I don't need so many Falcon breasted Guards.

Even more than I want uniform Guards, I desperately want an army of identical soulless Horde Troopers. I don't want them to look different. Their monotonous uniformity is what makes these guys so appealling.

So my petition/suggestion is that any future Horde Trooper 2 pak not feature variations between the two figures. Or if there is a variation, it can be swapped for a pack-in that is identical to the other Trooper.

Yes, a battle damaged armor would be nice for a Horde Trooper but please for the love of the Goddess, pack in a replacable undamaged part!

Does anyone agree that our armies of Horde Trooper robots should all look identical?

I might be wrong, but I think Mattel will pack Horde Troopers with 2 different kinds of heads. The head with the usual, yellow V-haped eyes, and the head with the rounded M-shaped eyes. Personally, I only like the usual, vintage yellow V-haped eyes, and I don't care about the rounded M-shaped (or arcade) eyes. I hope Horde Troopers will have some sort of mecanism that will allow them to be displayed "damaged", but that their armor will actually be the same (and undamaged). Or, that there will be 2 different breastplates (undamaged and damaged) that will come for each of them.

I was wondering if there would be a black and a white Trooper (the captain being black and the troopers being white)... Mattel could easily make a 3-pack of these.

Unfortunately there's not much variation to draw from for the Troopers without access to Filmation. They only appeared in a few minicomics ("Hordes of Hordak" being the on where they were featured) and mostly didn't even use the one weapon the vintage figure came packed with. I therefore think the Troopers are a prime subject for 4H invention and creativity!

What I "expect" the pack to have at the very -least- are four breastplates (2 undamaged, 2 damaged), 2 staves modeled after the vintage weapon and... no idea about the rest. Maybe a pair of Horde-style crossbows? Blasters?

I still love the break-apart action feature so that would be pretty cool. Really, I love the Horde Troopers they way they always were so I don't want too much variation between the two packaged figures. I want them to look like a uniform army.

I would agree with you, but after the Palace Guards, I would feel cheated if they were not packed to the gills with accessories. Like Star Wars and their variation of troopers, I always wanted an elite Horde Trooper, maybe one with a cape or a different chest plate or something. Like this wonderfully drawn picture done by Emiliano back in 2004. Yeah I know, too much hyper detail, but a good variation from the Filmation and 200x versions to say it's an elite trooper.

Well, to each his own, i guess. As far as looks go, i think Skeletor is untold times better than hordak. He is kind of death incarnated in a bodybuylder's flesh husk, with the garments of a roman centurion. Hordak, by comparison, looks pretty lame. I always wondered what is he supposed to be. A man-bat with a couliflower cranium? Most likely. Only thing i liked about the old toy was his crossbow.
In the media, to br honest, when the two clashed it was either a draw (most frequent outcome) or a Skely win (in the filmation she-ra, at least one episode when shadow weaver betrays hordak).
And i liked the idea of horde prime, this was the only (little) thing that injected a (tiny) bit of simpathy for cabbage cranium batface, kinda like Tex Hex.
Last but not least, if we consider good old Skelly only has a handful of freaks to help him (ok, in the late minicomics he could count on the snakesmen too) fighting he-man, the masters and the whole army of eternia, while hordak had next to unlimited resources and still was unable to defeat a small rebellion...
Back on topic, well if hordies can also be human underneat the armour, well a human head would not be that bad an idea.
On another note, was'nt there a horde character that basically was a living brain, like the tmnt one?

I love the idea of Horde Prime, but not for that reason; I happen to be a massive Horde fanatic, and Hordak is one of my favorite characters.

I love Horde Prime due to the whole connection with Horde World, and how he makes the Horde Empire a very, very vast beast rather than just an army running one measly planet. The whole idea with Horde Prime suggest countless sectors of the Horde all throughout the cosmos, and I really love that idea; I could totally see the Horde having attained that level of status in the cosmos too.

Having Hordak be the leader simply of that sector of the Horde shows just how amazingly powerful one small group of an entire empire can really be, and leaves so many possibilities of the extent to which the Horde empire exists to one's imagination...especially seeing as he himself is responsible for the creation of Skeletor.

In the media, to br honest, when the two clashed it was either a draw (most frequent outcome) or a Skely win (in the filmation she-ra, at least one episode when shadow weaver betrays hordak).

Hordak did beat Skelly one-on-one, in a DC comic way back when. (I think it was a DC comic.)
I remember Skeletor thinking to himself that he had never had to use so much power before, and he started to doubt he could win.
He-Man stepped in to stop Hordak before he could finish Skeletor, but technically, he won.
Maybe someone else can shed more info on this encounter.

I prefer Skeletor as a villain as well, but to me Hordak is the true 'big bad' if we're talking magic power.